Seasons
by hana-ginkawa
Summary: Another oneshot about Sesshoumaru and Kagome.


**Title:** Seasons  
**Genres:** Romance  
**Pairings Represented:** Sesshoumaru/Kagome  
**Rating:** PG  
**Summary:** We all have seasons in our lives. These are just snapshot views of the time after the demise of Naraku.

* * *

When she was fifteen, she found herself in love with a hanyou.

When she was sixteen, the well refused to take her back home.

When she was eighteen, several village boys offered for her, but were chased away by a cursing, sword-bearing Inuyasha.

When she was nineteen, Inuyasha was given back his first love in the form of a wish granted by a heart shattered with the truth.

When she was almost twenty, plague took the other away, and she was left still second best.

When she was twenty, she realized that she loved Inuyasha, but she didn't _love_ him anymore.

* * *

The monk and taijiya settled in Edo in a hut built close to Kaede's soon after Naraku's demise. Lechery ended except in the right places, they had their first child that next year.

Sesshoumaru visited quite often. Bored with the state of affairs at home, he would frequently engage in battle with his half-brother, a 'poor opponent, but the only one worth fighting in the area'.

Shippo fell in love with Rin. And with the threat of half-kits roaming Edo, that kept Kagome busy as she dealt with a furious youkai lord who would not leave her alone.

Inuyasha would sit in his tree and dream away.

* * *

Kagome remembered dying once. Since discovering her lack of desire to be with Inuyasha since Kikyo's second death, she had taken on the form of the village's miko. It was a business she knew and one that would keep her mind off other things, like her own happy ending, or her life 500 years in the future.

A demon had surprised her morning bath, and she lay in pieces upon the ground, her blood staining the leaves upon the shore of the spring. She was there for a few minutes, knowing that if the two who could smell her did, they would be too late. She remembered thinking that if this was her end, then so be it. His love had died, and hers had faded when she knew he couldn't love her the same way. She couldn't go back home and perhaps this was for the best. She couldn't ever raise a blade to herself anyway, no matter how despairing life got. She closed her eyes and sighed softly as everything stopped, welcoming the silence of an aching heart.

She opened her eyes to meet with frowning golden ones, cradled in his arms, the one having grown back in three years after it was taken. The 'why' was lost as his lips crashed into hers.

And with her life granted, her heart was reborn.

* * *

Inuyasha would look at her with regret, but she knew he wasn't really seeing her. He never really had.

When Sesshoumaru looked at her, it was with hope, a strange hope that flitted through his eyes like wings when they met hers.

* * *

After her death, she found a sense of purpose. It began and ended with a heart thought to be cold as the snow on Mount Fuji.

"Why did you save me?" she whispered.

They sat at the edge of a meadow, Shippo and Rin laughing together as they chased fireflies in the twilight.

He wore his armor proudly. It had changed and modified over the years, specifically with the loss of the pelt he used to carry around. A flash of him carrying a broken, but not dying, Rin to her in the middle of the night, a whisper of "I can save her from death, but this I cannot help her with" flickered across her mind.

She felt small, insignificant next to this person who held life at his hands.

She waited as the wind blew past them, tossing her hair and his.

"Because I could not see a world without you in it."

Sighing, she leaned against his side as his arm moved to hold her close.

* * *

A more profound, a more fulfilling, a more strange love there had not been seen since that of Kikyo and Inuyasha, and perhaps never had.

Afternoons would find them gazing across the Edo plain, mornings would steal upon nights spent in each other's arms.

The taijiya smiled happily to watch the two pass by, a son bouncing on her hip.

* * *

Inuyasha was the first to congratulate them by attacking Sesshoumaru.

Sesshoumaru was only too happy to accept it.

* * *

Sesshoumaru watched with darkened eyes at the half-kitling with brunette hair bouncing on 'Obaachan's' lap. Part of him wanted to rip the kitsune apart, the other wanted to take Rin away. But seeing the happiness in her eyes, he couldn't muster the malice to. Plus, in dealing with the surrogate mother of said kitsune, he knew home life would be not very happy if he did anything untoward.

Inuyasha was found to be a very fondly thought of 'Ojisan' who would fling the children high into the air and catch them on their way down. Sesshoumaru could only roll his eyes as another high squeal of laughter rang out across the city.

He turned his attention back to his human mate as she jabbered with the taijiya, once more holding another son to add to their collection of two sons and a daughter. The monk, sometimes the only other human the youkai thought of even speaking to civilly, turned to him.

"Do you think, Sesshoumaru, that you will have children one day?"

"Perhaps."

The monk smiled knowingly and wandered off.

* * *

"FINE! Have your heirs. I'm leaving."

She turned to walk out the door, but he beat her to it.

"You are not leaving."

She glared up at him, hurt, "Since children from me is so DISGUSTING to you, I can and I will leave."

He growled low, "Children that would be born of you would not be disgusting to me. It is merely that I need a full-blood heir. A half-blood could not hold this position and expect to live. He would be yours to raise."

She turned away from him again, facing the room and folding her arms under her breasts.

He sighed. "After my heir is born, we could have more. Of you and of me."

"But getting a full-blood heir would require you to MATE with another youkai."

"I would get no pleasure from this act."

The look she gave him declared otherwise.

"Beyond what pleasure I would receive from the act itself, I would get none."

Her shoulders began to slump, signaling his win, but not his joy at this victory.

"You know, I knew this would happen someday. I kept on trying to make myself believe that it wouldn't. When I saw Shippo's child. . ."

He moved carefully and wrapped his arms around her, his chest flush with her shoulders.

She continued, "I knew your past. And I knew it when we finally joined."

He remained silent, his breath warming her neck.

"I will remain happy. I will be happy for what I can get."

* * *

"SEIJO!"

The boy cringed at the sound of his father's voice. He turned a fangy smile in the direction of his sire's footsteps.

"What did you do to Takamura?"

"Ahaha, do?"

The narrowed eyes caused sweat to break out on the boy's forehead. "I only wanted to keep him from following me."

"By hogtying him and hanging him from the weapons rack in the dojo?"

"Ahahaha. . . Overkill?" The young youkai's nervous laughter reminded Sesshoumaru of Kagome's own. The child may not have been from her loins, but he was her son in the way he found important.

* * *

"How come I'm not aging like I should?" She looked at herself in the mirror, a lone fingertip tracing the beginnings of crow's feet.

"You are a powerful miko, and those I revive with Tenseiga are given a part of my life force. You would not live as long as I, but you will live longer than you would have otherwise."

She met his reflected gaze. "Which is why you choose not to do it so often, eh?"

A smile quirked the side of his mouth and she went to find it with her own.

* * *

"So, you are not my real mother?" Seijo looked quietly out of hurt eyes.

Kagome wanted to wipe it away. "No. But I am your mother. I didn't birth you though."

"Oh. Who was she then?"

"A daughter of the Lord of the Northern lands. An inuyoukai such as myself."

Seijo peered at his father. "Why am I not of Mom? Why am I different than Taka, or Meiko, or Shinji?"

"You are the heir and first born. You would not have been strong enough to carry the problems of the clan on your shoulders should you have been born hanyou."

Thirteen-year-old eyes glared red at several hundred-year-old ones. "It was your choice, wasn't it! I could have been her son!"

"Seijo! You ARE my son. Nothing can change that, not even your birth mother."

Tears began to flow from his eyes. "I am not different?"

"No. You are the same in my heart as your siblings are."

Kagome opened her arms and clasped the crying boy to her, kissing his head as he bawled into her chest. She glanced up to meet troubled golden eyes. She reached out a hand that was gratefully taken.

* * *

Two inuyoukai, and four hanyous stood silent upon a grassy hill.

"She is gone?"

"Yes."

"Thank you for telling me."

The father of the other inuyoukai and three hanyous looked over at his half-brother. "It would not seem right to not tell you. You were great allies with her long ago."

"Was her life good?"

The taiyoukai looked at his children. "It was very good. She was happy."

Inuyasha snorted and Sesshoumaru glared at him, "What is funny?"

"I think you don't hate me any more."

One eyebrow raised, "No, I do not hate you anymore. But that doesn't mean I like you."

"So what happens now?"

"We wait. And I will find her again. You are proof enough of that."

Inuyasha had the decency to blush. "Yes, but I didn't care for her the same way."

"That does not matter. Mine is a different tale."


End file.
